Wrong Numbers

Why is it that when you inform someone they've dialled a wrong number they generally say "Are you sure?"

At home my landline number is very similar to the local EH Booths supermarket, and at this time of year we get a lot of calls from people trying to order turkeys, and whenever I tell someone we're not Booths they always question the veracity of my statement, to which I try not to respond with "of course I'm bloody sure" or worse.

I used to get it at my last house as well, as my number was only 1 digit away from a very busy doctors' surgery, unfortunately it was one frequented by a combination of elderly folk and immigrants, so I would have to repeat the correct phone number to them several times.

In the end it got so bad I managed to persuade the surgery to pay for my number to be changed and print me some cards with my new number on...

At one time my number was exactly the same as the Weather Report for sea fishing - except I was on a different exchange. One morning at 5am I informed the caller it was persisting down (or words to that effect..) and that a Force 10 gale was in progress.

The answering machine kicks in with the usual "we may be out etc" which always amuses would be callers to the jail.

Since the exchange was updated a few years ago, the mis-dialled calls to the jail have dropped substantially which makes me wonder how many were finger trouble and how many were actually BT equipment faults.

Customers of the washing machine repair man won't take no for an answer when I tell them they've got the wrong number. They've obviously been fobbed off before and aren't falling for that one again.

With the detailed descriptions of the faults left on the answering machine somtimes, I'm almost tempted to go round and repair them myself!

My phone at work is one digit away from that of the local chemist. I have a constant stream of callers, some who are the sweetest, polite elderly gentle folk, who are apologetic and polite, and who just failed to see a 3 as a 5. They sometimes launch into a careful description of how their condition has worstened, and how they have run out of tablets, and I'm politely trying to cut in to save their embarassment. Some of them seem so utterly confused (polite still) that I almost want to call the chemist myself to make sure their medicine does reach them. I have done so with one poor lady, who seemed to be so in much of a state I wasn't sure she'd make another call.

The others are probably on methadone. They tend to swear at me before they put the phone down. Or just put the phone down.

It's the elderly who call in the morning, 9 am on the dot usually. The swearing crew call just after the chemist closes for the night, five past six! I can tell it's likely for the chemist, as it'll be a local number, and work calls are never local!

Our old telephone number was one digit different to a local shoe warehouse, and we averaged at least five calls a month from someone requiring a shipment of shoes.

The calls eventually stopped when the warehouse had a major fire, and the business moved to a new location.

We did have a telephone call about six weeks ago, when an elderly lady phoned three times insisting that the telephone number she was ringing belong to her brother and not us. She either managed to get the right number for her brother, or she gave up, because we haven't heard from her since.

Unless its one of the many telephone calls we have, which are switched to an answer machine, and the caller terminates the call in quick time.

The other day I was talking to our local heating engineer via our landline and his mobile. We finished the conversation, only for our telephone to ring a short time later,with the engineer's number coming up, and we were able to hear a dual voice conversation faintly 'in the background'.

Apparently his mobile often does this - double dials. He keys in a new number, and his mobile also dials the previous number 'as a silent or in the distance call'.

Yes, speed dials do reduce the number, but I just remembered a time when a speed dial made my life hell for a few days, because someone had mis-programmed my number into some device that was set to autodial at night, so it rang every 5 minutes for 10 attempts then gave up, then did the same the next night.

We called BT Nuisance Calls Bureau and they traced the calls to a fax machine in Blackburn, they called the company and told them to sort out the fax or they could be liable to a stiff fine. We got an apologetic call from the company and a box of chocolates sent by post.